Council of EU Cuts Liechtenstein, Peru From ‘Gray’ List of Tax Havens

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Liechtenstein and Peru are compliant with EU laws on tax after implementing necessary reforms and were therefore removed from EU “gray” list of tax havens, the Council of the European Union said Tuesday in a statement.

In late 2017, Brussel released two lists, a blacklist of non-cooperative jurisdictions and a “gray” list of the countries that had to increase transparency.

“On 2 October 2018, the Council found Liechtenstein and Peru compliant with all its commitments on tax cooperation. It also agreed to remove Palau from the EU’s list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions,” the statement said.

According to the council, Palau has committed “at a high political level to remedy EU concerns.”
The decision came after EU economy and finance ministers met in Luxembourg to discuss the bloc’s financial regulations and the fight against money laundering. The ministers, making up the Economic and Financial Affairs Council, were expected to make changes o the EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions, which are non-EU states that the bloc considers to not be doing enough to tackle tax evasion and avoidance issues.

Six jurisdictions — American Samoa, Guam, Namibia, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago and the US Virgin Islands — are still listed as uncooperative. When the list was published in December 2017, it included 17 jurisdictions.